A Hidden Kiss
by Lady Voldything
Summary: Mermaids are not as they are in storybooks. They are dark creatures, in touch with all things mysterious. They gently prey on the innocent and lead secretive lives of quiet desperation.


This humble fan-written story comes from the movie version of _Peter Pan_ starring Jason Isaacs, Rachel Hurd-Wood, and Jeremy Sumpter. It does not claim ownership of the original story nor characters, save the specific mermaid I created; however, this mermaid was intended to be the specific one who touches Wendy's hand in the movie.

* * *

I am a mermaid. Humans fear us, I notice. Yes, we have caught a few stray humans in our time: a boy here and there, usually dark but once paler. The dark adults know enough to stay away, and usually the dark children as well. The pale children, though, they knew so little – always the newest ones would go wandering past. We haven't seen them for a long time, though, not since we finally caught one of them. 

That other boy – he must be keeping them away. The different boy who was here first, when Never-Never Land was born in the shadow of his thought. He was a leader with a strange glint in his eye. The pirate scum call him Peter Pan, I think. He has returned, and the air has lost its unfamiliar icy chill and all is normal – normal as ever Never-Never Land can be.

We can hear him calling us now. He comes to us for our knowledge of all dark things in this world of dreams and child's play.

I swim with my sisters, to Peter and the shore. There is no thought among us of catching a human, he comes to us alone and we could never take Peter. We break the surface of the water and see him on the far-away shore. Swimming slowly towards him, I can hear him speaking and then I hear another voice. A very different voice, higher and more musical. I have never heard another like it. It is like my own, but filled with light and laughter. This companion, a young girl, is new to us and Never-Never Land. So different is she from the loud, brazen boys who follow Pan about like brainless puppies. And clearly, she knows very little of us.

Her voice and words are intriguing. "Mermaids! How sweet!" I see that look Pan gives her. "Are… are mermaids not sweet?"

"They will sweetly drown you if you get too close."

How perfectly said… the boy who is Never Land knows more about us than any other. He knows the peril that the girl is in.

She is lovely, her hair like that irritating fairy's would be if her light went out. This one's light is in her smile and her face. Her face that seems to hold all the joy we mermaids never have. And her eyes. Eyes – always do human eyes call to a mermaid. Hers enrapture me.

We reach the shore and she gazes at us in delighted fascination. My sisters begin to speak with Peter Pan of whatever he has come to ask of us. Ignoring them, the girl sets eyes on a mermaid behind me who is mindful of Peter's presence and swims away from us.

The moonlight is wild, so calm and cold. Looking at her there is something about the delicate beauty compels me as if she is the most important thing in the world. For a moment, I think she is. I swim close to her and break my head out of the water – tantalizingly within reach of her wrist and hand on the rock. Fixing my hypnotic eyes on her, I see the pull of the mermaid at work already. It is like we are the only two people in existence. My eyes pull her in as I rise up imperceptibly. Her eyes sparkle in the night.

My hand gently grasps her wrist. She almost looks down at it, but my gaze holds her. Her lips part slightly in surprise and, I like to think, anticipation as she almost starts to lean towards me.

Suddenly, I yank her by the arm and into the water. Peter is deep in conversation and somehow does not notice. The gaze between the girl and I has been broken and she struggles to break free. She is no match for the easy strength of a deceptively slender mermaid. I gently drag her down deeper into the murky waters of our ocean in the stars, then stop and just look at her. She is even more beautiful down here, with her long hair billowing around her head and the shifting shafts of moonlight giving her an unearthly glow.

Still she tries to escape me, but I am in my own place now and she is lost under the water, lost as all the other humans I have done this too. Yet, looking at her, I feel that I was lost all along and have finally found something precious.

I continue to inspect her, waiting. She is wearing a small white garment of some thin cloth, so thin that in the weak underwater light it looks to be transparent. I can see her smooth skin just beneath with my eyes designed to pierce water and murk and the souls of men. The knowledge that her skin lies so close is more than I can stand. Holding her easily with one arm, I reach out and undo the button on her stomach. The sight of even so small a part of her body is exciting and her attempts at wriggling from my grasp falter slightly at my gentle touch.

She twists a bit more, but to no avail. She is not going anywhere tonight.

As the falling rays of moonlight slowly dance between us, I can see her weakening. My eyes drink the sight of her in hungrily as her struggles slow and stop completely, and the rhythmic pulse in her wrist grows faint. My hand is still stroking her stomach. I know that she is still alive, and her helpless sleep entices me. Slowly, tenderly, I withdraw my hand from her middle and refasten the three undone buttons on her nightdress. Then, I gently take a small shoulder in each hand as her pulse weakens and almost dies.

Knowing that it will come soon, I lean in ever so slowly towards her sweet face and closed eyes. My timing is perfect – when I am less than three inches from her, her lips part slightly in a last desperate attempt at breathing the air that is not there. Before she can draw that fatal, waterlogged breath, my mouth gently meets hers.

Her lips are soft and sweet, and the energy in the kiss drives me nearly insane with pleasure. The simple physical contact almost makes me wish she could stay under here with me, alive, forever. I know that in another moment, she will die.

Suddenly, a small hand attached to a tanned arm and panicked face hauls her abruptly out of the water.

* * *

As he frantically pounded on Wendy's chest and listened to her gasping breaths

with dizzying relief, Peter Pan looked out over the water to see the dark figure of a

nameless mermaid swimming swiftly away from the shore in an ocean of his own imagination.


End file.
